Claude Chabrol is dead

Terribly sad. Soon only the TV-raised directors will be left.

I will put on “The Bridesmaid” at noon, and lift a shot of something strong in his memory.

Sleep easy, Mr. Chabrol. You gave us so much. Thank you for uncounted great hours at the cinema.

RIP. Claude Chabrol, even though I have not seen any films by you yet. I better start looking at his films now. :-(

Sad to lose another great Nouvelle Vague director. He made many great films; A few worth seeing again. [I have only seen a fraction of his close to 70 films].

Les bonnes femmes
Que la bête meure
Le boucher
La rupture
La cérémonie

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What other directors died recently, Dimitris (I’m afraid to find out, but a google search for “recently dead directors” was largely unsuccessful)?

Fuck and I haven’t seen a single one of his films. Shame on me!!!

Drunken – Alain Corneau and Eric Rohmer are other French filmmakers that died this year. I’ll let Dimi fill you in on the other filmmakers.

Matt – that’s a good top 5. The weird thing is I was thinking about Les bonnes femmes yesterday. But oh well, I suppose I’m always thinking of Chabrol’s films.

I wikipedia’d Chabrol last night at like 5… he was probably breathing his last at that moment.

The NYT article.
On the bright side, we still have Rivette, Godard, Resnais, Varda…

Rivette, I hear, isn’t in the best of health. “36 vues de pic Saint-Loup” is very much on the order of a curtain call.

Go directly to Netflix, Filmbot, and rent any Chabrol you find there. You don’t have to begin at the beginnign to “get” him.

R.I.P. He will be greatly missed.

Sad news indeed, talented filmmaker.

Terrible news. He will be missed.

Claude Chabrol wasn’t dead 20 years ago? What the fuck?

I read The Beast Must Die this summer and thought a lot about his adaptation, how much I hated it and how I’d have to watch it again because I liked the book so much. Maybe now it’s a good time to get around to that. I disliked a lot of his movies actually, including the ones made during what many consider his greatest period (68-73, I guess). But early ones like Handsome Serge and The Cousins were great.

I’ve always been interested to read his book on Hitchcock, maybe more so than I’ve been interested to see his films. Where should we situate Chabrol in the history of cinema? How influential and impactful was he? I haven’t seen nearly enough of his films to render a judgment.

Pretty impressive body of work. Those New Wave French guys are leaving us and it is a sad occasion.

Here’s a vote for Les Biches. Nobody did bad girls like Chabrol.

Loved every minute of his films. Rather than trying to put it into words:

Great pics Matt !!

It’ll be awhile before it’s possible to evaluate exactly where to place chabrol in the history of the cinema.
For the moment it’s easy to say he was one of France’s most important directors with a very high ratio of quality (though scarcely part of the "tradition of quality.)

Chaborl was the first of the Cheirs gang out of the gate with a movie. His technical expertise was apparant from “Les Cousins.” By the time of such masterpeices as “Le Boucher” it was clear he had an uncanny ability for getting inside of complex characters and delivering the goods when it came to drama.

Even his “minor” films like “Follies Bourgeois” and “Le Tigre se Parfume a la Dynamite” have something going for them.

Although French critics have always been accused of chauvinism, Chabrol was never a prophet in his land, probably because of the delicate balance between art-film and industry-film of his work. Never won the Méliès Award by the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, only once the Louis-Delluc Award (Merci pour le chocolat) and just a César Award nomination… Too bad for the author of masterpieces such as Le boucher.

A filmaking master ,while the other new wave directors are celebrated Chabrol slips under the radar and thats surely ripe for review.

Lets hope his lesser known films reach a dvd audience with his passing and lets hope the NFT show a season of his works

Yes, it seems Chabrol was very often taken for granted as a great filmmaker. Maybe he was just too prolific for his own good? Or just too consistent? Even his lesser works are still good. Or perhaps too easily dismissed as a director of “thrillers” or an imitator of Hitchcock (a charge that never made much sense).

Maybe not his best, but definitely my favorite, is “L’Enfer.” We lost one of the greats. Maybe more Americans will discover his films just to see what the fuss is all about.

Chabrol. Just found out. Dont know what to say.

Even his films considered minor are great. Trying to work my way through his catalogue slowly. Saw Masques last night. In lesser hands, it would’ve been a mess. With Chabrol’s mastery (and Noiret’s performance), it was a treat. Did he make a bad film? If so, I haven’t seen one yet.

I dunno, he made A LOT of movies. No doubt they are all worthy of interest and consideration, but I also have no doubt there are some clunkers in that lot.